


lest with my own eyes i behold thee beaten

by trill_gutterbug



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, Domestic, Felching, Headmaster Kink, M/M, Oral Sex, PWP, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rimming, Roleplay, Rough Sex, Sex Crying, Underage Roleplay, but like in a tender way yknow??, hate that word but whaddaya do, omg yes i know he's dead i know stop reminding me, they're in Big Love okay!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:15:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24430087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trill_gutterbug/pseuds/trill_gutterbug
Summary: Was the firelight playing tricks, or was James blushing? Francis peered closer, blinking, and was proven correct when James turned his head so the light caught him across the cheekbones. They had flushed the pink of grave embarrassment or even graver excitement, Francis couldn’t be sure which.“He was my - my lover,” James mumbled. “In a manner of speaking.”-James tells Francis the story of his teenage abuse at the hands of a tutor. Then they fuck about it.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 40
Kudos: 121





	lest with my own eyes i behold thee beaten

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was ~*inspired*~ by [reserve](https://reserve.tumblr.com/)'s [absolutely murderous fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24167734) about Francis semi-dubconning twinky James as a youf, because that is a Vibe and a half, and I'm a demon. 
> 
> This fic contains explicit roleplay of an underage dub/noncon scenario, although all actual "onscreen" participants are indeed of age and consenting. 
> 
> Title from, dur, Buckley's translation of the Odyssey.

The fire was getting low, their conversation meandering toward no destination in particular, when Francis suggested he read aloud from Buckley’s new translation of _The Odyssey_. 

“Wonderful idea,” said James, smiling at Francis over the rim of his teacup. Francis had long since finished his, but James, who was well on his way to becoming one with the settee, was nursing a third. “It’s been too long since we experienced nautical misfortune in so innocuous a manner.”

Francis chuckled as he fetched the book from its shelf. “So long as it’s only nautical misfortune and not poetical. Buckley’s a very literal translator, I hear.” 

James _hmm_ ’d, probably guessing that Francis only knew that because he’d asked the shopkeeper yesterday for a recommendation. Francis resettled in his armchair across from James and flipped open the handsome cover to the first page, squinting in the warm lamplight. He managed to read for ten minutes before James interjected anything, which was, no doubt, a record. 

“You were right, Buckley has no tolerance for frippery, does he?” James mumbled. He had slid even further into the cushions, long legs stretched onto the rug before him. He appeared the picture of indolence, although his eyes were alert.

Francis paused. He raised his brows at James above the spine of the book, waiting for clarification.

James pushed himself upright enough to sip his tea. “I’m glad you’re not reading it in Greek, Francis,” he said, hiding his quirked lips behind the cup. “The original is punishing.”

Francis adopted a mien of astonishment. “Punishing?” he repeated. “The finest work of literary genius in our great western world? Surely not.”

James answered his astonishment with feigned offence. “I would never be so bold a Philistine! It is only my comical ineptitude with Greek that makes it a misery.”

“I see,” said Francis - whose eyes crossed at plain English on a clear day - without sympathy. 

James carried on, gesturing with his cup. “I performed a soliloquy from _Alcestis_ for a ladies’ tea when I was thirteen. Or, I should say, I attempted to. I don’t believe the shame has ever left me.”

Francis smiled to picture it - James a wee gawky creature stumbling his way along before an audience of politely attentive old aunts, flushing redder with each passing moment, trembling chin held high. “I’m sure it wasn’t so bad,” he said, charmed despite himself.

“It was fairly bad, Francis.” James shook his head, laughing. “I falsified my own faculty for years before remedial tutelage finally befell me.”

Francis did not doubt it in the least that James could and would do such a thing, but he made an enquiring sound nonetheless. 

James shrugged. “To what end, I don’t know. Laziness, I suppose. Egotism. It didn’t matter in the end, eventually I was…” He stopped. The word cut off mid-breath, as if he’d run up suddenly on a brick wall. His eyes searched the middle distance. Francis watched a stitch appear between his brows, his jaw work in the little sideways tic that meant he was upset and trying to conceal it. 

“Yes?” said Francis gently, shutting his finger in the book. “Go on.” The change had come so fast, it unsettled him.

James cleared his throat, looking down at the cup in his hand. He gave it a quick swirl, then knocked it back. The motion of his swallow was shadowed to beautiful effect by the firelight. Francis, despite his concern, admired it with the dually-appreciative eye of an art enthusiast and a devoted lover, still stymied by the depth of his own capacities - he had never truly been either of those things before James.

“It’s nothing,” James said. “I just - I was reminded of someone.”

“Ah.” Francis nodded. “A rival? A bully?” He raised his eyebrows. “Someone with more luxurious hair than you?”

James smiled, but it hardly stuck. “A tutor,” he said. “A Mister… Well, it hardly matters. I called him Master H.”

The words were plain enough, but James’ tone was not. Francis paused, sensing the edge of some hidden wound. He wondered if James need it lanced, or dressed, or left to heal. “Was he unfair to you?” he asked, thinking of a young James struggling beneath the shame of unspoken bastardy - reactive to criticism, striving for esteem he thought could only be legitimised by the good opinion of others. How devastating it would have been to encounter a foe in academic authority so early in his career. 

“No,” said James, peering into his cup. He gave it another little shake, tipping it this way and that as though trying his hand at divination. “Not scholastically, not socially. But… interpersonally. I suppose you could call it unfairness.”

“I see,” said Francis, although he did not. “Did he…” He trailed off. Was the firelight playing tricks, or was James blushing? He peered closer, blinking, and was proven correct when James turned his head so the light caught him across the cheekbones. They had flushed the pink of grave embarrassment or even graver excitement, Francis couldn’t be sure which. 

“He was my - my lover,” James mumbled. “In a manner of speaking.”

Francis felt his eyebrows rise. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised, in light of the nature of his and James’ relationship, and the clear strength of James’ proclivities, but he was. Of course it had occurred to him to wonder about James’ early habits, but he had been assiduous in asking no questions he didn’t truly want an answer to, or that James might be loathe to discuss. Youthful indiscretions and broken hearts were often sore subjects, in Francis’ experience. If asked to speculate on James’ formative sexual exploits, he would have been quick to list a variety of adventuresome young women of good breeding - as well as their brothers - and exotic androgynes in distant places. Also, knowing James as he did now, a handful of briefly-encountered older men operating under false names out of let rooms. Headmasters had never been on the list, but, contemplating it now, Francis realised they should have been. Headmasters, tutors, senior officers, church elders - they all would have appealed to the James who had admiringly clung to Sir John’s every word, who had grown up fatherless, who worked himself to the bone advancing in rank by surprising ages, who liked for Francis to praise him lavishly in bed on account of his ability to capably and obediently do as he was told. 

“In a manner of speaking,” Francis repeated cautiously. He was disinclined to make it a direct question, as James was refusing to meet his eye. 

James’ jaw twitched again. He stared into the fireplace with the attention of a man taking some vital instruction, but his hands fidgeted with the cup and saucer. They made a dull ringing as he scraped their perimeters together. “It was…” he began, then stopped. 

Francis shifted in his armchair, slipping his finger out of the book. He suspected Homer no longer an appropriate companion for the evening. “You needn’t say anything you don’t wish to.” He watched James’ face, feeling tender and protective toward the little fold between James’ brows and the way his teeth caught and released his lower lip. “We’ve all done things we might... feel differently about later.” There. That was diplomatic, wasn’t it? James could take it any way he wished.

James’ gaze slid toward him, narrowed regretfully. His voice was soft. “We certainly have, haven’t we?”

Francis smiled. “I’ve learned to appreciate good stories, lately.”

That made James chuckle, which at least smoothed the lines around his eyes. “And I have learned to tell good ones.” His expression became somber once more. “But I’m not sure if this one is good or not.”

Francis inhaled slowly. He had learned many lessons on their grim voyage, and many more since its conclusion, but chief among them when it came to James was pausing to be sure of his full meaning before responding out of turn. He studied the slump of James’ shoulders beneath his jumper, the absent movement of his teacup, the way James’ eyes, big and dark in the cozy light, darted to his and away again like a shy cat that longed to be scratched but didn’t want to appear overeager. 

“Why not tell me,” Francis suggested, “and let me decide.”

He couldn’t fathom having said such a thing three years ago, or even two. The Francis, joyless and frustrated by love, who had existed in the Arctic before the profound reshuffling of all his priorities, would rather have driven nails through his own eardrums than sit through James Fitzjames recounting tales of youthful sexual antics - or more likely he would have pruriently thrilled to hear them and pass caustic, jealous judgement - but the Francis of today, who had been taught so succinctly the privilege of even knowing James Fitzjames existed in the world, much less being welcome to lay proprietary hands on him at any hour of the day, found he possessed a bottomless well of patience for what he recognised now was not the arrogant bluster of a small man attempting to seem large, but the uncertain tendency of a great man unsure of his own welcome.

James was silent for the beat of four breaths. Finally, he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, the saucer held flat between his hands. “Alright,” he said. He stared at the floor near Francis’ feet. His voice was low when he began speaking. “My uncle engaged him when I was sixteen.” He glanced at Francis, his brief smile embarrassed. “Greek.”

“A formality, no doubt,” Francis said, gallantly. 

James inclined his chin in noble gratitude. “My brother - William, I mean - had been to Eton and back by this point, while I was at sea, but he sat in on the classes sometimes. He never seemed to…” James paused. He frowned into the distance, gnawing his lower lip as though tallying some unsettling personal mathematics, then shook himself. “The tutor, Master H. He was…” Another pause. Francis watched James’ thumbnail make a slow, absent circuit of the rim of the teacup. “I thought him good-looking, I suppose. He was intelligent and masterful in his field, a good teacher. But moreover, he was firm.” His thumb tapped just above the handle of the cup. “Stern to the point of tyranny, at times. He did not permit me to slouch or speak out of turn during lessons.” James opened his hand briefly, dismissive. “Of course. All quite regular. But it was the _way_ he did it. In all my time in the service, Francis, I have rarely found this man’s equal in any class of officer for his ability to command obedience. I was riveted. I was -” 

Francis shifted in his chair. Even if he hadn’t known where this tale was heading, he would still have been effected by James’ telling of it. There was nothing lascivious about James’ tone, but Francis recognised in his posture and his reluctance to make eye contact echoes of his occasional behaviour in bed. Was it reflex, a habit endemic to the contemplation of sex, or something more? 

“He knew immediately, I’m sure, of my interests.” James’ lips tucked up at one corner as he shook his head, amused with himself. “Despite all my terrors and paranoia of being found out for this thing or that, I was not a subtle young man.”

Francis couldn’t contain a snort of laughter. He made sure his expression was entirely without reproach when James peered up at him. “I’m sure I would never have said so.”

James laughed too. It seemed to break the little spell of tentative melancholy that had gripped him. He leaned back on the settee, tossing his hair out of his face, and set the saucer on the cushion next to him. “I tell you, Francis,” he said, adopting a serious air belied by his twitching mouth, “I made a fool of myself at regular intervals.”

“Oh,” Francis grumbled, dismissing the idea with a brush of his fingers. “I doubt it. You were - and are - much too charming to do yourself very much damage in that regard.”

“You didn’t think so yourself, for a long time.”

“My sentiments were coloured.” 

“By seeing through me,” said James. “By seeing the truth of me.”

Francis had developed, along with his sobriety, a number of unexpected nerves both visceral and spiritual. Some of them had been familiar of old, sensitivities anesthetised by liquor from a vestigial impulse for self-preservation, but others had been new, or had reappeared clad in new garments, recognisable in surprising contexts. His affection for James had been one of these - he’d awoken clear-headed to find himself aware of James at a distance, like the ghost of a missing limb he’d never actually possessed, an invisible breeze that plucked heartstrings he thought long decayed. The progression of his attachment had been immediate. Inexorable and unavoidable, increasing by the day, by the hour, until now he felt riddled with love in some arcanely practical manner, as though James were a flowering tree and Francis the dirt through which his roots grew - inextricably linked, symbiotically reliant. He would know James at any distance, through any hardship, despite any veil of reservation or misunderstanding that might come between them. 

“Never,” said Francis. “I saw only what I expected to see. What my impatience and envy stroked my ego by showing me. I did not comprehend you clearly for the longest time, James, and I hope you know that I regret every minute wasted on petty grudges between us.”

James looked away, back toward the fire. Francis had said these words to him many times, in different combinations and tones, and they never failed to make James shy, just before they made him brave. The bravery came a second later, as Francis had hoped it would. 

James set his jaw and continued. “He made his intentions known fairly quickly, all things considered. As soon as he was sure of me, I suppose. I was hardly an innocent, but my experience was mostly… incidental. Childsplay.”

“You went to sea young,” Francis supplied, which James could take as either an explanation or a question, depending. 

“Twelve,” James agreed. He shrugged. “I had other things on my mind at that age.”

Francis, who had gone scarcely a year older and could not relate, smiled to himself. 

“But I had nothing else on my mind that winter. Nothing.” James made a little gesture of negation, of cutting, of totality. “I was possessed.”

“Was it a love affair?” asked Francis.

James scoffed. “Hardly. Nothing so romantic. Nothing so _kind_.” 

Francis watched attentively. The tenor of James’ voice had changed. There was a raw quality to it, his words coming less examined, more true. 

“There was little in the way of warning. He was guiding my hand in the formation of Greek letters one day, and the next, I had my trousers around my ankles.”

Francis took a sharp breath through his nose. The bald words jolted him. Not because they were unexpected, but because James said them so flippantly, in the same tone he would ask Francis for butter across the supper table. As though it hardly mattered at all.

“I see,” said Francis. 

At last, James turned away from the fireplace, brows pinched. "He would bugger me most cruelly and - and capably." Although he faced Francis directly, his gaze was fixed on a point twenty years ago. 

Francis hesitated, but he had not imagined the pause, or the stutter, after 'cruelly.' "You must have been a lovely boy," he suggested, testing for safe passage amidst the shoals. There was always a way through James’ defenses, readily navigable, if Francis could only discover the entrance. 

"I was," said James, without vanity. "To my own varying detriments." His eyes flicked to Francis with a rueful expression. "Not just for the -" He twirled his fingers, encompassing the topic at hand. "But for my own sake, my own ego. I don’t know that my looks had much to do with it. He enjoyed having the upper hand, that was all, and I relinquished it to him without a struggle.” James shook his head. His top lip curled, then his tone became beseeching. Urgent. “I did - I did anything he bade me. Francis, I did anything at all.” He leaned forward over his knees again, clasping his hands before him. Francis’ breath quickened. In that attitude, James took on the aspect of a supplicant before a confessor, begging understanding in a matter of grievous misstep. Francis was no priest, but he’d been penitent often enough. He understood the process. 

He leaned forward too, so that he was on a level with James, unmaking the implication of hierarchy between them. “Of course you did.” He reached for James’ hand and held it between his own, turning it so he could stroke his thumb across the centre of James’ palm. “Of course. You were only a lad, you didn’t know.”

James’ fingers twitched against Francis’ wrist. “Oh, I did.” He chuckled without humour. “I knew very well. My comprehension of the particulars may have been lacking, but my inclinations were not. He saw them, and he knew there would be no refusal. Not one with any spine to it.”

“You did refuse?”

James nodded. “In word only. After a certain point.”

Francis couldn’t restrain the gentleness that rose in him, nor did he try. He brought James’ hand to his mouth to lay a kiss in the cup of his palm. _My love,_ he wanted to say. _Nothing could make me think less of you, not now, not ever._

But James was still talking. “I capitulated again and again. Daily. It beggars belief that no one noticed. Or perhaps they did, and were too embarrassed on my behalf to say, I don’t know.”

“I’m sure no one did,” Francis said, because he could hear the note of desperation in James’ tone. He understood the only thing more hurtful to James than personal failure was that someone might note that failure and, by unwarranted grace or warranted spite, deny him the opportunity to redeem himself. 

“I don’t know,” James repeated. “I could hardly walk, Francis. The whole thing is a miracle.”

Francis closed his eyes. He gathered himself before he spoke. “How did it happen?” 

James sighed. He turned his hand over so he could clasp Francis’ fingers. “All at once. Overwhelmingly. He made no sport of it. We were alone and he went straight to the point. I don’t recall his words, it’s all a mess, but he touched me. He touched me - here -” James lifted Francis’ hand and laid it at the base of his own throat, so Francis’ fingers curved over his shoulder, thumb cradled in the dip below his Adam’s apple. Francis’ breath caught. Unbidden, he stroked the pale skin there, riding the bob of James’ throat. He looked up to meet James’ eyes. He found them wide with unmistakable pleading. 

Francis’ fingers flexed. He discovered his voice too had become raw, like it was being drawn over rocky ground. “What next?”

James’ breathed out heavily, trembling. He pressed Francis’ wrist. “He drew me out of my chair and pushed me down on my knees.” 

Even on the edge of both their seats, they were not close enough to kiss. The parted invitation of James’ mouth was almost unbearable - Francis wanted to taste it with a fervency that almost undid him. Instead, he drew James slowly forward, testing, suggesting, until James reached the limit of the settee. An interminable second passed, the pair of them frozen like actors in a tableaux, on the precipice of some unfathomable plunge, before James went pliable beneath Francis’ hand. With a shuddering noise, he slid to his knees on the floor. 

Francis’ heart began to pound. He thought he could taste blood. It took all he had to keep his hand from shaking on James’ collar. “There’s a lad,” he whispered. It was his own mouth that said it, his own affection. He realised his mistake at once.

James’ eyes shot to his with a hunted expression, his chin jerking to the side. All wrong, the motion said. 

Francis corrected himself immediately. “Do as you’re told, now.” He was no dab hand at flattening his accent - the trajectory of his life might have gone otherwise if he were - but he gave it a shot regardless. James had not offered the provenance this Master H, but Francis could guess that a man employed in a rich Englishman’s household for the purpose of tutoring even adopted sons would not sport a brogue of any sort. He followed his command with a firmer pressure on James’ shoulder. When he was sure James would comply, he eased back in his chair. He was not a stranger to James crouched between his knees, but the sight of it now compelled him to greater heights of appreciation. His blood ran wild. His cock jerked in his trousers, stirring despite the hour and the late dinner they’d enjoyed. 

James shuffled close. He rested his cheek on the inside of Francis’ knee and looked up with very dark eyes. “I had no idea what I was doing,” he said. The timbre of his voice rattled Francis’ spine. “And he did not give me leeway to learn. He taught me the way a prisoner is taught imprisonment.”

Harshly, Francis understood, and entirely at once. Without adjustment. 

There could be little ambiguity about what they were doing, not at this point, but Francis paused with his other hand on the clasp of his trousers, waiting for James to acquiesce in some subtle manner. James did, with a dip of his lashes, a groan, and by leaning hard on Francis’ leg. Francis noted the quickening of James’ breath and marked it as keeping pace with his own. He fumbled liberating himself. It was not convenient, this angle, for either of them. He supposed that was the point. James was the farthest thing from averse to carnal distress even under regular circumstances - so long as he was properly consoled after - and these were hardly those. Although he felt James balk beneath his touch, he didn’t mistake the hungry look on James’ face as he drew his prick out. He tightened his grip in reply. “None of that,” he chided. He was only half hard, but beginning to thicken. James’ parted mouth and heavy proximity were seeing to it. He stroked himself twice, firmly. James twitched, rocking forward against Francis’ knee. Perhaps it was the reflexive response of the James who had been Francis’ eager lover for two years, or perhaps it was the recalled instinct of a boy freshly confronted by an object of forbidden desire, but Francis responded to it just the same: he pulled James closer, up onto the edge of the armchair, and pressed him mouth-first between his legs. James resisted at the last second, jerking his head back with a gasp, but Francis had expected that and bore down in turn. He pushed his prick against James’ mouth, which opened partway, enough for Francis to feel hot breath. “Take it,” he said. “Come on, behave yourself.”

James made a high desperate noise before Francis got inside him. It was not the familiar, showy ease with which James usually took him, eyes bright, hands stroking, tongue hungry. This was halting. Unpracticed. James’ crooked teeth scraped him. Francis tightened his knuckles in James’ hair. Ordinarily, not particularly averse to carnal distress himself, he might not have minded, but the way James hung limp in his grasp, darting looks at him, informed him how he was intended to feel. 

“Take care, boy,” he hissed, giving James’ hair a sharp yank. James gagged as Francis pushed deeper, which was its own playacting; Francis wasn’t quite hard yet, and James was no blushing innocent to accommodating him even when he was. 

The motion of James’ tongue stiffened him further. Francis groaned, lifting his hips. He felt one of James’ hands curl around his ankle, a tentative touch to ground them both. Francis didn’t know if Master H would have permitted such familiarity, but he wouldn’t deny James it now. As he grew thicker in James’ mouth, he worked himself deeper. He was aiming for another pretty choke and got one. James' throat squeezed fitfully at him and Francis throbbed in response, quickened, stirred. It always took him a spell to reach his full potential in these regards, but James never minded the process unless he was in a real froth of starvation, in which case Francis enjoyed satisfying him with his fingers nearly as much as with his prick. The thought of it alone, the way James would beg him for it, his casual demeanour giving way to beguiling starvation as his body ran rampant over his sense, excited Francis even more. His cock grew harder in James’ deliberately clumsy mouth.

“Did he speak to you?” he asked. His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears.

James visibly hesitated. He peeked up through his lashes, calculations running behind his eyes. Finally, he nodded. 

“Of course he did,” Francis murmured, pleased. “You didn’t know anything, did you?” He so loved to talk James through this sort of thing, complimenting and encouraging him when he was shy, responding to his heated fantasies when he was not. It would have been difficult to rein himself in. His mind was already running wild with the sort of things he would have told some fetching reluctant youth on their knees for him under questionable circumstances, if he were that sort of man. 

James shut his eyes. His hungry moan vibrated through Francis’ cock, which flexed in response, stealing Francis’ breath. It was a wonder how James hung trembling in his grip, as believable a fragile young virgin as he was by turns a sassy doxie at a whorehouse, or a fine lady lustful for her faithful footman, or the swooning victim of a ravenous pirate crew, or any of the other inventive roles he liked to play. Even his broad shoulders seemed slighter, the angle of his jaw tremulously diffident. There was a deeper quality to his acting this time, something different to the usual way he inhabited his parts. The clutch of his fingers on Francis’ ankle betrayed it, and his silence. His breath was coming fast, although Francis didn’t know if that was due to arousal or distress. 

“Anyone might come in,” Francis said, “and see you sucking cock on your knees. Would they even be surprised, do you think? Or does everyone already know?” He waited for the shudder of James’ shoulders to tell him he was on the right track. “It’s easy to see what you want, what you need. I saw it immediately. You’re hungry for things you don’t understand, aren’t you? How does it taste, having that hunger fed?” He forced himself farther into James’ mouth, fully hard now. The choke he got in response might not have been false, but to be sure, he held James down by the back of his head until his breath sharpened, his lips stretched and twisting. Francis knew how long he could take it and pulled him off, his mouth making a sloppy sound, before that point. He wanted to stroke the soft place behind James’ ear with his thumb to soothe him, but restrained himself. He spoke over James’ damp panting. “You’ll have to get better at this. I won’t suffer an incompetent pupil. If you’re going to ignore your studies to trail after me like a slut, then you’ll at least apply yourself to the subject, hmm?” James stared at him with wide eyes, wet mouth hanging open. When he tried to sheathe it back down over Francis’ cock, Francis jerked him up, bending his neck back. “I asked you a question,” he said. His prick, bare and wet, brushed the base of James’ neck. James’ eyes were damp, his cheeks flushed. He blinked at Francis insensibly, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. 

“Yes, sir,” he whispered. “I will - I’ll - I’ll apply myself.”

“Good.” Francis let him back down. He took his prick in his other hand to feed it to James, pushing in firmly all the way to the hilt, until James’ nose was pressed to his belly. He worked himself there for a handful of seconds in short forceful motions, ruthless like James was an incidental addendum to his pleasure - convenient, tight, and nothing more. James whined, nails digging into Francis’ ankle, but he remained obediently supple, letting Francis thrust up into the back of his throat. He was open just enough for Francis to enjoy the cinch of it on the head of his cock. It was good - wonderfully good. Francis felt his balls tighten with the squeeze of it, but he didn’t want to finish in James’ mouth. That wasn’t the point. He tugged James off him again, and this time James came free with a ragged noise like he’d been wounded. He looked up at Francis with even more tearful eyes.

“It’s not enough,” Francis lied, making himself sound unmoved by the naked look on James’ face, the heaving of his chest - although he was terribly moved, both to passion and sentiment. “You can do more than that.”

James nodded, a short motion that pulled his hair in Francis’ fist. 

Francis released him and gave him a little push backwards. “Stand up.” 

James obeyed. He didn’t use Francis’ knee to help himself where ordinarily he would have, nor did Francis extend a hand. He rose on wobbly legs and stood looking down at Francis. Despite his height and Francis’ fairly absurd position, seated with prick out, James looked as capable of threat or dignity as a frightened puppy. It made Francis’ stomach twist, not unpleasantly. He regarded James for a long moment. “Trousers down,” he said at last. 

James reached for his fastenings. He liberated himself with a reticence Francis had never seen on him. His hands didn’t shake, but they moved slowly, unconfidently. He faltered with his smalls clutched shut until Francis made an impatient noise, then opened them to reveal his hard cock, raised up snug to his belly. Francis didn’t let himself react to the sight of it as he wanted to, by reeling James in by the hip for some sucking of his own. Instead, he said, “Take them off,” and nodded toward the settee. “Bend over it.”

Without a word, James did as he was told. He stepped out of his britches and, bare from the waist down, knelt to arrange himself over the seat of the settee, his arse pointed in Francis’ direction. Francis sat still for a minute, watching James’ ribs expand and contract with shaky breaths. He watched James’ stockinged feet hook together on the floor, then slide apart, his hips lift and then lower, as though a great conflict of desire and reticence were warring within him. Francis palmed his own cock, stroking it idly. “James,” he said, without the affect of sternness. He waited for James’ head to twitch in his direction, showing he was listening. “Tell me about it. Tell me what happened the first time.”

James exhaled. His arms, elbows planted on the cushion, tucked in a little closer to his body. “I…” he began. Francis watched a shiver run down his spine. A moment passed. Francis wondered if this would prove the breaking point, if James perhaps wasn’t capable of describing it, if he only wanted Francis to play the devil and invent his own violations wholecloth. That would be alright. If that’s what he needed, Francis would oblige him with pleasure. But he didn’t think it was. Finally, sure enough, James drew a breath and said in a small voice, with his face turned toward the seat, “It was over his desk in the study, like the most base of cliches. He didn’t… I - There was no charity to it, Francis, and certainly no romance. He didn’t force me, but -”

Francis got up from his seat when James’ voice cracked. He knelt gingerly on the rug, with respect to his knees. He wanted to stroke the dip of James’ back, pet his flanks, but didn’t. Instead, he touched the inside of James’ right thigh with the back of his knuckles, nudging it aside. James’ spread obligingly, without delay, although he quivered as his shoulders dropped against the cushion. He was entirely open for Francis, offering himself. Francis held his cock by the base, stern with himself if not James. “What did he use?” he asked. He put his thumb in the crack of James’ arse and stroked down to show what he meant, rubbing over the little furl of James’ hole, which cinched tighter at the touch. 

“Spit,” James breathed. “Just spit.”

Francis winced. They’d done it before, and would no doubt do it again - caution and solicitude were all that mattered to make it work, but there was no doubt James’ first experience had lacked both. “I see,” he said. He rubbed James’ hole again, until it relaxed just a little. He had to take a few deep breaths to steady himself, because what he sorely wanted was to lean down and lick it open. He knew it would comfort James to be seen to like that, and inflame them both, but that was undoubtedly wide of the intended mark. He meant to comply with the conceit, however James streered them, so he pushed James’ thighs apart fully and got in between. James was taller than him, but he had slung himself so low on the cushion, subservient like a punished dog, that his arse was at just the right height. Francis pulled James’ cheeks apart with both thumbs and spat between them. His spit landed above the hole and slipped down, where he caught it with his thumb. James jerked at the sound, at the spatter of it, and moaned. 

“Quiet, now,” Francis said, gruff again. “Don’t want your uncle hearing, do you?”

James flinched and shook his head. Francis watched him lift a hand to cram the edge of his fist between his teeth. _Good lad_ , he wanted to say, but didn’t. 

“Don’t make a sound,” he said. He spat in his hand and stroked it over his prick, then again - twice more - on James’ arse. Each time, James’ hips switched back, his thighs trembling, but he kept his silence. Francis pressed the tip of his thumb inside, testing. James was well versed in receiving him, and did so without difficulty. Good. There was uncompassionate, and then there was cruel. Francis had never deliberately been the latter in the realm of congress, and not in any other realm for a number of years now. He didn’t want to start now. It was still a pinch, working himself inside. At the first touch of Francis’ cock, James moaned again, cutting himself off with a strangled noise. He quaked under Francis’ hands. Francis imagined the coltish creature James must have been as a boy, long-limbed and unfinished, a twitchy thing eager to please and eager to learn. Mistreatment might have made him shrink rather than become defiant. He must have gone hushed and still under his tutor’s selfish handling, as he was doing now, frightened and unsure but receptive nonetheless, hopeful for approval. Francis held him apart and sank inside another inch. James’ body clenched and wrung at him, trying to force him back out. He pushed harder, insisting on the issue. He knew it could not be comfortable, but he also knew the words James would use to stop him if it was too much. They knew one another well like that. 

Halfway inside, James let out a sob. He buried his face in the settee and shook, clawing at the cushions. “Please -” he said. “Please, I can’t -”

Francis reached up to clamp a hard hand over his mouth. The motion pressed his prick in farther. “What did I tell you,” he growled. He squeezed the tight round of James’ arse with his other hand, prying it open to accommodate him. “You don’t listen when I lecture you and you don’t listen now. What will it take?” On the last word, he shoved all the way inside. James whimpered against his palm. They both went still. Francis held his breath, willing himself to keep his dignity, for James’ arse was squeezing him brutally tight. “I’ll switch you with a birch if I need to,” Francis said, low. 

James said, “ _God_ , Francis,” against Francis’ palm. His eyes darted back, and spilled over with tears as they did. 

“I’ll start with your hands,” Francis panted. He punctuated the threat with a thrust of his hips. He was deep, as deep as he’d ever been, and could barely withdraw for the tightness and lack of slick, but he did nonetheless, pulling out just far enough to make the next thrust count. “And then your thighs, if that doesn’t work, and your arse if that needs it too.” 

James squeezed his eyes shut. His body rocked with the motion of Francis’, pliant but not limp, the muscles of his back all knotted. 

“I’ll switch you until you’re bruised,” Francis groaned. Between them, he pressed his thumb again to the stretched rim of James’ hole, testing it. “And here, to make it tight again after I’ve used it. Do you want that?”

James shook his head. 

Francis laughed, choked and harsh. “Liar. Why else do you test me? You want me to have to treat you like this.”

James didn’t shake his head this time. He didn’t do anything. He just lay taut beneath Francis, hips canted up for the taking, breath rushing in and out between Francis’ fingers. 

“You want to be instructed,” Francis continued. His mouth was getting away from him, but he let it. He knew he was going to come soon, all too soon, and he intended to do so without consideration for James’ pleasure. That would have its own time. “That is what I’m here to do.” He lay himself flat over James, pinning him against the settee, thrusting harder. “Instruct you.” He forced his thumb into James alongside his prick, just up to the first knuckle, just enough to make James whine and wring at him. Francis dug his fingers into James’ jaw, holding him tight, as tight as James was holding his prick. “Hold still, now, boy,” he whispered, voice gone all rough with his impending crisis. “I’ll give you just what you need, hold still for it -”

He came with a sharp snarl, buried deep. His cock throbbed hard, nearly hurting with the force and might of it, no doubt hurting James too. James felt it, and knew what was happening, for his hungry mouth lipped at Francis’ hand and his body shook under Francis, going rigid in sympathy. Francis emptied himself inside, taking his time with it, enjoying every hard spasm of his balls, and when it was through, he lay on top of James for another minute longer, enjoying that too. When he began to soften, he removed his hand from James’ mouth and reached down to help the process, slipping out in a rush of semen. James gasped. His body was tight as a bow string, flushed from neck to tailbone. 

“Francis,” he whispered, clotted by tears. 

Francis looked up at him and felt his heart tighten in his chest. James’ face was pink with a splotchy blush, his eyelashes damp. His open mouth too was red from biting and from Francis’ unkind handling. Francis reached up between James’ thighs and found his hard prick, which leaped at his touch. 

James made a frantic, encouraging noise, saying, “Please,” again, meekly, like he thought Francis might leave him without satisfaction after all. 

“Darling,” Francis murmured, overcome with such devotion that for a moment he could hardly breathe. He wished there was some earthly way to tuck James away inside himself, like a folded handkerchief safe in a pocket, and keep him just like this forever, warm and sweet and waiting for Francis to take care of him. But instead, he did the next best thing, which was to lower his face to James’ lovely arse and put his mouth to good use, as he’d wanted to before.

James seized up with a quiet wail when he did, his hole clenching under Francis’ tongue, and pushed back. “Yes, yes,” he said, “oh, Francis -”

Francis held him apart and slid his tongue inside, tasting his spend, teasing it out and then pushing it back in. He still held James’ prick in one hand, and began to stroke it. He could tell from its rigidity and how it flexed in his grip that James was close. It wetted his knuckles with eagerness. He rubbed James from the inside, licking deeply at his loosened hole, soothing its soreness, apologising for his coarse treatment. It must have been terribly sensitive, for it twitched frantically when he slid two fingers in alongside his tongue and curled them up to stroke where his prick had just been. 

“God, Christ, _fuck_ ,” James sobbed, thrashing, and suddenly his prick was doing more than just wetting Francis’ knuckles. He shot off like a geyser in Francis’ grip, soaking his fist. His arse seized at Francis’ tongue, at his fingers, over and over. Francis felt his stockinged feet kicking on the floor. Eventually, the spasms slowed and began to subside, until James was truly limp on the cushions. Francis withdrew, liberating his fingers one at a time, and lastly his tongue. He looked at James’ bright pink hole, open and wet, and gave it a final kiss before sitting back on his heels. With one hand, he rubbed James’ back, and with the other, he touched his own prick, damp and still swollen from its work. It was certainly down for the count, and now that his pleasure was receding, other aches and twinges were making themselves heard. No matter, he’d sleep well tonight. Maybe have a hot bath in the morning. 

“There, now,” he said gently, watching James shake. “Are you alright?”

James nodded, rocking his head back and forth on the seat, his face hidden. 

"Couldn't even make you cry like that on my prick," said Francis, equal parts fond and teasing.

James' goosefleshed buttocks spasmed like he wanted to roll over but couldn't summon the wherewithal. He rose on his elbows twice and sank down before he managed to push upright. He looked at Francis with an even deeper flush than before, eyes bright. "Francis..." he slurred.

Francis smiled at him. He shuffled on his knees to chase blood into his legs again and ran his knuckles down the back of James' thigh. "You carry on like a girl getting her quim licked."

James' face, somehow, went even more violently red. " _Francis_ ," he said again, as though Francis had not said many more shocking things to him in the past, some of them within the last quarter hour.

Francis chuckled at his expression. He would have bent and kissed James' pale buttocks again, or the delicate crease behind his knee, or the dip of his back, but he was sore already and suspected he might embarrass himself by being unable to sit up again if he tried. Instead, he reached for James’ dear face, sticky as it was, and drew it down for a kiss. James twisted to meet him, squirming his limbs around until he was arranged in Francis’ lap, the whole sweaty, knobby weight of him straining into Francis’ arms. They kissed with increasing urgency, and then decreasing, until they only leaned on one another against the edge of the settee, their faces pressed together. 

“Was it alright?” Francis asked, stroking his fingers through James’ damp hair. 

James nodded. His eyes were closed, but he had both arms around Francis’ neck. Francis could feel how he was breathing steadily now, deep and relaxed. 

“Thank you,” James said. “I didn’t - I’ve never -” He trailed off, sounding abashed.

Francis hummed his understanding. “If you’d ever like to again,” he said, “or differently, or just speak about it…”

James kissed his cheek. He didn’t reply, but his answer was plain from the way he burrowed deeper into Francis’ arms, appreciative and comfortable. 

The sweat was beginning to dry on them both, giving Francis a chill. He wished it would be at all reasonable to draw a bath right now and get in it together. But their housekeeper was long gone for the night, of course, and he was sure neither he nor James had the wherewithal to be hauling buckets of water upstairs. Ah, well. There were other ways to get warm.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said, giving James a squeeze.

James sighed with contentment. “Yes,” he said, leaning back to smile at Francis. “Take me to bed.”

So, gladly, Francis did.


End file.
